The con artists get conned — but who's playing whom in this Soviet chess match of lies?
The play is about the Game, about creativity, which this time turned into the form of a brilliant speck. Skillfully, talentedly and artistically, the victim of the same players as himself, Ikharev does not suffer a catastrophe, because his "Adelaide Ivanovna" remains with him. Tool and mascot of his game. His secret manuscript ...
Acting
Kalyagin's Ikharev — a performance of infinite layers.
Direction
Viktyuk and Kholopova's theatrical precision on film.
Writing
Gogol's dialogue transformed, not merely adapted.
Director
Galina Kholopova
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
One of the rare Soviet adaptations that dared theatrical stylization over socialist realism, smuggled through Gogol's 19th-century respectability.
Viktyuk later became Russia's most controversial theater director; this early film shows his obsession with performance as identity formation.
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